A Day Without Bull***t

I'll confess, I was somewhat less than impressed with "A Day Without Seapower:"

Eaglen and McGrath's actual recommendations are plausible enough. They call for significant restructuring of the U.S. defense industrial base and the rationalization of long-term U.S. defense planning. These are arguments worth engaging, and I even agree with them on some points. Such arguments do not, however, need to hide behind the dishonest scenario that the authors use to distract and scare the reader into accepting them. Indeed, the authors' recommendations would have almost no effect on the dire scenario that they use to sell them. If the U.S. economy does collapse by 40 percent, U.S. defense spending and U.S. seapower will certainly decline dramatically. Defense sector innovation can't stop that, and long-term plans laid down in Congress today can't keep future politicians from cutting funding because they have no money to spend. Eaglen and McGrath apparently hope that the reader won't notice that their policy recommendations have no relation to the entertaining but absurd scenario that they spin.

Frankly, I would have been more sympathetic if Eaglen and McGrath had played up the threat of invasion by maritime-oriented aliens. More entertaining, and altogether more realistic.